Month: October 2016

The scale of forced closures in nuclear power-reliant France – 19 reactors offline and 12 more due to shut – is the biggest since the Fukushima disaster in 2011, after French nuclear safety watchdog ASN warned its sprawling probe into forged quality control reports on reactor parts would turn up more irregularities. These deepening setbacks have sent French power prices soaring to 8 year highs and are expected to spike more into the winter…

As Bloomberg reports, French power prices for next-month delivery, already at the highest in eight years, are set for a record increase in October amid expectations that prolonged maintenance at Electricite de France SA’s nuclear reactors will expose further anomalies after manufacturing problems in components came to light.

Concerns about shrinking supply as colder winter weather increases consumption helped boost electricity imports and sent prices soaring to record levels in Germany and the U.K.

Reuters adds that traders said other fuels that interact with power such as coal, oil, gas and EU carbon emissions respond to different drivers and were only partially bullish because of the French nuclear situation. But concerns are adding up.

On Tuesday, a delayed restart at the Civaux-2, Dampiere-3 and Gravelines-2 plants added to nervousness as much as a French government decision to maintain a mechanism under which main utility EDF must sell supply cheaply to rivals.

 

Apart from facilitating speculative re-selling into the tight market, this also stirs more demand. "EDF is in the market to buy to supply to others," one trader said.

 

In addition, there have been more irregularities detected at EDF reactor Gravelines 5.

 

French wholesale 2017 power prices hit a contract high of 45.6 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) on Thursday amid gains on coming weeks and months.

 

"Would France stop all the faulty nuclear plants in case it means shutting down factories in the country and have people freezing?" asked one trader.

 

Prices in Europe's largest power supplier Germany with its vast installed renewable capacities are also rallying.

 

Its 33 gigawatt coal capacity can also be revved up to help when other markets are short, thanks to a high level of interconnection.

 

German Year Ahead power hit a two-year high of 33.65 euros.

"Panic plays a great role today but the question is how many people are really still short," said a German trader. "Maybe the rallies were exaggerated and will collapse when the winter weather turns out warmer."

We are sure this will be great for the French economy.

via http://ift.tt/2eW30cw Tyler Durden

Submitted by Robby Soave via Reason.com,

Student protesters at the University of California-Berkeley gathered in front of a bridge on campus and forcibly prevented white people from crossing it. Students of color were allowed to pass.

The massive human wall was conceived as a pro-safe space demonstration. Activists wanted the university administration to designate additional safe spaces for trans students, gay students, and students of color. They were apparently incensed that one of their official safe spaces had been moved from the fifth floor of a building to the basement.

According to video footage of the protest, demonstrators blocked off the bridge completely. Students who needed to get to class had no choice but to cross the stream by jumping from rock to rock. Dozens of people can be seen doing so.

In the video, the activists appeared to let several students of color pass unmolested, but white students were forced to find other routes. A few who tried to force their way through were violently rebuffed. Protesters shouted "Go around! Go around!" at a white man on a bicycle.

Another student was told, "This is bigger than you," by a protester. "This is about whiteness."

Afterward, the protest moved to the campus bookstore, where activists posted an eviction notice informing the owners that their building was being reclaimed as a safe space for queer and trans students.

"You are hereby notified by the students of the University of California, Berkeley, to vacate the premises immediately," the eviction notice stated. "University administration wrongly allocated this two-story facility to a third-party corporation, keeping in line with its intensifying legacy of prioritizing financial profit over student needs."

The protesters then marched through the student union, reportedly disrupting students who were studying.

I get that they are trying to make a point—they don't think campus is a safe place for marginalized students, etc. – but racism in the service of activism is still racism. These students consider themselves progressives, but what's progressive about punishing people—making it more difficult for them to get to class—because they were born with the wrong skin color?

Indeed, leftist student activism has become increasingly backward on race and identity issues as of late. The Berkeley protesters are demanding formal, university-sanctioned safe spaces for students who belong to particular identity groups. They want what can only be described as a kind of official segregation: separate spaces for students of color, trans students, queer students, etc.

Students have the right to sort themselves into whatever groups they want. But it's baffling—to me, at least—that they would want these groups endorsed and managed by the administration, which creates the impression that identity-based division is some kind of university goal.

Berkeley's public areas—its quads, common rooms, parks, student union, libraries, classrooms, and yes, bridges—should be safe, welcoming spaces for all students. What happened over the weekend didn't look very inclusive to me.

via http://ift.tt/2fjOJuC Tyler Durden

Following two poor auctions, with both the 2 and 5 Year issue earlier this week pricing in wobbly conditions, many had expected today’s 7 Year, and last for the week, sale of $28 billion in Treasurys to tail as well. Instead, as we learned moments ago demand for the belly of the curve was the strongest among this week’s auctions, perhaps as a result of today’s sharp selloff in global rates.

The auction printed at 1.653%, on the screws with the When Issued, if well above last month’s 1.385%. Today’s auction was also the highest yielding since January of this year when the yield was 1.759%. Perhaps it was the bounce in the yield that prompted foreign buyers to return, with Indirect Bidders taking down 61.5%, the highest since July if just below the 6 month average. Direct Bidders were also prominent, taking down 13.2%, above the 6mma of 11.5%. As a result, dealers were left with 25.3% of the auction, the lowest allotment since June.

In summary, a largely average auction, however certainly stronger than this week’s two previous issues and one which could have gone far worse as a result of today’s steepening in the long end.

via http://ift.tt/2eJZxi0 Tyler Durden

Having unveiled the first images of its new nuclear missile capable of reaching US soil, Russian President Vladimir Putin is warning today that Washington's actions are "pushing Russian into a nuclear arms race," forcing Russia "to develop its nuclear attack systems."

Yesterday, Russia reveals photos of a new highly advanced liquid fuelled heavy ICBM capable of evading anti-missile defences and hitting US territory with 10 tonne nuclear payload.

The Makeyev Design Bureau – the designer of Russia’s heavy liquid fuelled Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (“ICBMs”) – ie. of missiles capable of reaching US territory from Russian territory, has published the first picture of Russia’s new heavy Sarmat ICBM which is due to enter service shortly, probably in 2018.

The picture is accompanied by a short statement which reads

“In accordance with the Decree of the Russian Government ‘On the State Defence Order for 2010 and the planning period 2012-2013,’ the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau was instructed to start design and development work on the Sarmat. In June 2011, the Bureau and the Russian Ministry of Defense signed a state contract for the Sarmat’s development.  The prospective strategic missile system is being developed in order to assuredly and effectively fulfil objectives of nuclear deterrent by Russia’s strategic forces.”

And now today, Putin explains:

• *PUTIN: INTERMEDIATE NUCLEAR FORCES TREATY SHOULD BE OBSERVED
• *PUTIN: RUSSIA, U.S. MUST BREAK VICIOUS CIRCLE OF CONFRONTATION
• *PUTIN: RUSSIA HAS TO DEVELOP ITS NUCLEAR ATTACK SYSTEMS
• *PUTIN: U.S. PUSHED RUSSIA TO ARMS RACE IN NUCLEAR SPHERE

Perhaps even more worrying are the comments from Obama administration officials declaration that war with Russia was all but inevitable (via AntiWar's jason Ditz),

With some Obama Administration officials openly advocating starting a war with Russia over Syria, it is noteworthy that a lot of top Pentagon officials are treating the conflict as all but inevitable. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley hyped Russian modernization efforts, but declared that they “will lose to the American Army.”

 

Russian officials have been cognizant of the possibility, insisting that Russia “can now fight a conventional war in Europe,” comments which Gen. Milley dismissed as “bluster, hubris, bravado.” and insisting that war with other nation-states “is almost guaranteed.”

 

Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Joe Dunford also complained about recent modernization efforts within the Russian military, claiming that they are threatening American interests with their capabilities, while Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work referred to them as America’s “competitor.”

 

Of course, the United States spends many, many times what Russia does on its military, but the fact that Russia has a proper military capable of defending the nation at all puts it in a total different category from most of America’s recent wars, and Russia’s massive nuclear arsenal makes it clear this is one war which, if the US launches it, they won’t be able to win outright.

As we noted previously, by contrast the US strategic deterrent still relies on missile systems such as the ground-based Minuteman III and the sea launched Trident II, which have their origins in the 1960s and early 1970s. With the Sarmat missile, which is supposed to enter service in 2018, the Russians will add another powerful modern advanced system to their strategic armoury.

via http://ift.tt/2eQNoZm Tyler Durden

While several years ago it was perhaps debatable in polite society that Venezuela’s socialist economy would collapse ultimately unleashing hyperinflation, any doubt was put to rest early this year when the IMF’s own inflationary forecast confirmed as much.

However, while the international community had long accepted the inevitable fate of Maduro’s socialist paradise, the local government sternly refused to admit reality and to avoid confirming what the local population already knew, it insisted on keeping the highest denomination bill in circulation at 100 bolivars, whose worth is approximately 8 cents on the black market, turning the most basic transactions into logistical nightmares and saddling banks with crippling money-handling costs. Economists and central bank employees say Mr. Maduro didn’t want to acknowledge the country’s inflation problem by printing bigger notes.

This has finally changed, and as the WSJ reports, Venezuela’s government, slammed by hyperinflation has finally thrown in the towel, and is planning to issue new bills in December with larger denominations—up to 200 times higher than the current biggest bill, according to people familiar with the plans. The move marks an implicit acknowledgment by the government that skyrocketing prices have slashed the value of the currency

The new coins and notes will go up to 20,000 bolivars, according to people close to the central bank, the finance ministry, the country’s banks and bill suppliers. This would make the biggest note worth $15 on the black market.

And since by doing so the government will tacitly admit that it has lost control over prices, It will also create a self-fulfilling prophecy of even higher prices, sending the country’s hyperinflation into overdrive.

As the WSJ adds, earlier this year, the government began informally allowing shops in the outer provinces to sell food at free market prices, reducing shortages at the cost of higher inflation, which the International Monetary Fund expects to rise above 1,600% next year. Further liberalization followed after the state oil company gradually rolled out higher-priced gasoline at gas stations in the border regions to reduce the cost of subsidizing the cheapest car fuel in the world, according to the company’s executives.

Venezuela’s loss, however, is a big gain for the companies contracted to print the money:

In recent weeks, several companies, including U.K.-based De La Rue, the world’s largest commercial printer, won contracts to print the new set of notes, which the government wants in time for the annual December spending spree, according to a person familiar with contract negotiations.

 

“It’s a very big deal. It’s a big package,” the person said.

Meanwhile, the central bank remains stuck in denial and hasn’t published price statistics for almost two years. Instead, Mr. Maduro has blamed the skyrocketing prices on the “economic war” waged against his government by shopkeepers and financiers. This has forced people to brave one of the world’s highest crime rates by shopping with backpacks full of cash and spend hours lining up outside ATMs, which give out less than $10 per withdrawal. Many provincial banks have reduced daily withdrawals to 30,000 bolivars, which would buy a Venezuelan couple a lunch at a mid-scale restaurant.

Amusingly, as we reported last year, the high demand for nearly worthless currency notes has also presented a financial burden for the cash-strapped government, which also lacks raw materials to print its own money. Since last year, Venezuela has had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to printing companies to feed its economy with bolivar currency. The shipments arrived to Venezuela from private printing presses around the world on several dozen windowless Boeing 747 jets. Given the crime risks, the air shipments arrive at the Caracas airport at night before the notes are loaded onto armored trucks and transported to the central bank vaults in Caracas, protected on the 18-mile route by soldiers.

Indicatively, a fully stocked ATM is emptied in just three and a half hours on average now, according to the Venezuelan Banking Association.

The good news for the insolvent nation is that all local denominated debts are now just as worthless as the currency, which incidentally is what the BOJ’s Kuroda would call: mission accomplished.

Sadly, Venezuela is the canary in the coalmine for what will happen to all currencies in a world where there is now simply too much debt.

via http://ift.tt/2dM9sab Tyler Durden

via http://ift.tt/2efcpft williambanzai7

Obamacare open enrollments for 2017 start next Tuesday and, being just 1 week prior to election day, that couldn’t be worse timing for the Clinton campaign.  As we’ve written on numerous occasion, Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster…so much so that even Obama recently acknowledged its failures by referring to it as a “starter home.”  Now, even the New York Times is admitting that Obamacare is a farce, pointing out that millions of healthy Americans would rather pay massive penalties to the IRS than buy health insurance policies with sky-high premiums.

The architects of the Affordable Care Act thought they had a blunt instrument to force people — even young and healthy ones — to buy insurance through the law’s online marketplaces: a tax penalty for those who remain uninsured.

 

It has not worked all that well, and that is at least partly to blame for soaring premiums next year on some of the health law’s insurance exchanges.

 

The full weight of the penalty will not be felt until April, when those who have avoided buying insurance will face penalties of around $700 a person or more. But even then that might not be enough: For the young and healthy who are badly needed to make the exchanges work, it is sometimes cheaper to pay the Internal Revenue Service than an insurance company charging large premiums, with huge deductibles.

 

“In my experience, the penalty has not been large enough to motivate people to sign up for insurance,” said Christine Speidel, a tax lawyer at Vermont Legal Aid.

 

Some people do sign up, especially those with low incomes who receive the most generous subsidies, Ms. Speidel said. But others, she said, find that they cannot afford insurance, even with subsidies, so “they grudgingly take the penalty.”

 

The I.R.S. says that 8.1 million returns included penalty payments for people who went without insurance in 2014, the first year in which most people were required to have coverage. A preliminary report on the latest tax-filing season, tabulating data through April, said that 5.6 million returns included penalties averaging $442 a return for people uninsured in 2015.

Of course, with final Obamacare rates for 2017 up a staggering 25%, on average, across the country, Donald Trump and other Republicans are making its failure a key topic on conversation on the campaign trail leading up to election day.

Obamacare is a disaster. We must REPEAL & REPLACE. Tired of the lies, and want to #DrainTheSwamp? Get out & VOTE #TrumpPence16 & lets #MAGA! http://pic.twitter.com/IO5fwVHLeT

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2016

Hillary, on the other hand, has vowed to make changes to “fix problems” like soaring premiums but, as The Hill points out, her chances of success are fairly minimal.  Unfortunately for most American’s, Hillary’s proposals to “fix” Obamacare entail doubling down on penalties on young/healthy people, increasing subsidies and adding a “public option”…all of which just means higher taxes.

Responding to the uproar over ObamaCare premium hikes, Hillary Clinton on Tuesday promised: “We’re going to make changes to fix problems like that.”

 

The question is: What changes could actually get through Congress?

 

Both parties agree that ObamaCare has problems. Premiums are rising sharply, and the pool of enrollees is smaller and sicker than expected.

 

But the agreement mostly ends there. Republicans say the law should be repealed, a position echoed by their presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

 

Should Clinton win the White House, as polls indicate, most if not all of her ideas for changing ObamaCare would have virtually no chance of passing Congress, so long as Republicans control the House and/or Senate.

 

Clinton is calling for adding a public insurance option to increase competition with private carriers, but Republicans and some Democrats fiercely oppose that idea.

 

She is urging an increase in the financial assistance available under the law to make premiums more affordable, but Republicans say that would be doubling down on a failed system.

In summary, “it’s the craziest thing in the world.”

via http://ift.tt/2dPsNST Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

This "maximizing growth and profits is the highest good" mode of production is insane.

Correspondent Bart D. (Australia) captured the entire global economy in three words: The Landfill Economy. Stuff is manufactured, energy is consumed shipping it somewhere, consumers buy it and shortly thereafter it ends up as garbage in the landfill.

This is of course the definition of "economic growth": waste, inefficiency, environmental destruction–none of these matter. Only two things matter: maximize "growth" by any means necessary, and maximize profits by any means necessary.

The Landfill Economy now encompasses the entire planet. The swirling gyre of plastic trash the size of Texas between Hawaii and California: it's just one modest example of the planetary trash dump that "growth" and profit generate as byproducts/blowback.

The planet's oceans are one giant trash dump. Everything from plastic water bottles to abandoned fishing nets to radiation to containers that fell off ships is floating around even the most distant corners of the seas. Seabirds nesting in remote islands die of starvation as their guts fill with plastic bits of "permanent growth."

Globalization has turned the planet's land masses and rivers into trash dumps. Want to make a quick profit along a tropical sea coast? Dig some big holes near the coast, dump in baby prawns, food and chemicals to suppress algae blooms and diseases and then harvest the prawns to ship to the insatiable markets of the developed world.

Once the prawn farms are poisoned wastelands, move on and despoil another coastline elsewhere.

Globalization has greased the slippery slope from factory to landfill by enabling the global distribution of defective parts. Whether they are pirated, designed to fail or just the result of slipshod quality control, the flood of defective parts guarantee that the entire assembly they are installed in–stoves, vacuum cleaners, transmissions, electronics, you name it–will soon fail and be shipped directly to the landfill, as repairing stuff is far costlier than buying a new replacement.

QE/ZIRP Is Crushing the Global Supply Chain, Product Quality and Profits (October 17, 2016)

The Keynesian Cargo Cults that rule global economics love The Landfill Economy because it means more "growth". Never mind the poisoned seas, rivers and land, or the immense waste of energy, commodities and labor that result from the global manufacture and distribution of shoddy products: if it adds to "growth," it's all good in the warped view of the Keynesian Cargo Cults.

We got your "growth" right here.

People are also tossed on the trash heap with careless abandon. The health of workers is a cost that reduces profits, so it's ignored unless it can be turned into a profit center via state funding for managing preventable diseases, i.e. sickcare.

A worker sickened by industrial waste or lifestyle illnesses who becomes a profit center is a wonderful source of "growth" and profits.

A worker who can't generate a corporation or state a profit is dumped on the trash heap as a matter of routine. A worker who can't generate somebody a profit or "growth" by taking on more debt to spend spend spend is worthless.

If a robot or software can do the same work, then it is self-destructive for an enterprise to pay a human worker: if profits fall, Wall Street will crucify the enterprise and competitors will eat it alive.

This "maximizing growth and profits is the highest good" mode of production is insane. It doesn't have to rule the world. As I outline in my book A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology & Creating Jobs for All, other more efficient, sustainable and humane modes of production are within reach if we escape from the global grip of the destructive "growth by any means" cult.

via http://ift.tt/2fjC8ri Tyler Durden